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Ben Somberg | September 6, 2012

Romney Falsely Claims Health Benefits of Utility MACT Are Due to Bankrupting Coal Companies — Not Pollution Reduction Equipment

Mitt Romney added a new twist Tuesday to false right-wing claims about the EPA’s regulation limiting mercury and other pollutants from coal power plants.  EPA estimated that the “utility MACT” will have annual monetized benefits of $37-90 billion and costs of $9.6 billion. A critique we’ve heard over and over again from the industry and its supporters […]

Daniel Farber | September 5, 2012

The Republican Platform’s Plan to Eviscerate Environmental Protection

Ben Somberg posted here recently about the Republican platform and the environment. He noted that the platform uses a discredited estimate of regulatory costs, calls for making environmental regulations into guidance documents for industry, and proposes a moratorium on new regulations for the indefinite future. Unfortunately, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If you can […]

David Driesen | August 30, 2012

Regulation as a Dynamic Macroeconomic Enterprise

Reposted from RegBlog. Traditionally, the field of law and economics has treated government regulation as if it were a mere transaction. This microeconomic approach to law assumes that government regulators should aim to make their decisions efficient by seeking to equate costs and benefits at the margin. As I argue in a new book, The Economic […]

Robert Verchick | August 28, 2012

Monsoon Madness

NEW DELHI — Here’s what monsoon season looks like in India. This summer, the northern states have been lashed with rain. In the northeastern state of Assam, July rains swamped thousands of homes, killing 65 residents. Floods and mudslides in northeast India sent nearly 6 million people heading for the hills in search of temporary […]

Ben Somberg | August 27, 2012

Draft Republican Platform Cites Debunked Regulatory Costs Study, Suggests Rules be Only a ‘Helpful Guide’

A draft of the Republican party platform, posted by Politico on Friday afternoon, reveals that the party has incorporated some of the more absurd claims and proposals on regulations pushed by House Republicans and some more radical trade organizations.  The draft claims regulations cost $1.75 trillion each year – that’s from a discredited study sponsored […]

| August 24, 2012

New Briefing Paper: States Can Lead the Way to Improved Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards

Today CPR releases a new briefing paper explaining how states can spearhead improving energy efficiency standards for home appliances. The paper, States Can Lead the Way to Improved Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards, draws on ideas discussed in Alexandra B. Klass’s article State Standards for Nationwide Products Revisited: Federalism, Green Building Codes, and Appliance Efficiency Standards. […]

Frank Ackerman | August 23, 2012

Can Clean Energy Campaigns Stop Climate Change?

Cross-posted from Triple Crisis. Can we protect the earth’s climate without talking about it – by pursuing more popular policy goals such as cheap, clean energy, which also happen to reduce carbon emissions? It doesn’t make sense for the long run, and won’t carry us through the necessary decades of technological change and redirected investment. […]

Joseph Tomain | August 23, 2012

The Romney-Ryan Energy Plan: Back to States’ Rights

Based on what the Romney-Ryan team has said so far on energy, I expected their energy plan today would be something like the National Energy Policy of 2001, delivered by Vice President Dick Cheney four months after George W. Bush’s inauguration.  I thought that their energy plan would simply be a retread of old thinking, […]

Thomas McGarity | August 22, 2012

DC Circuit’s Cross-State Decision: A Nearly Inescapable Straitjacket for EPA

Yesterday afternoon, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a long-awaited decision on the validity of EPA’s “Cross-State” rule governing interstate transport of pollution.  The EPA has been trying for more than two decades to come up with a solution to the vexing interstate transport problem, but every attempt has failed. The court has now […]